


Dusk Descends on Dunsfold

by manloverules_ok



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 05:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manloverules_ok/pseuds/manloverules_ok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All James wants to clear the tension that wraps around his spine is a cigarette. One bloody cigarette - that's all he needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dusk Descends on Dunsfold

Dusk descends on Dunsfold. Tensions rise as the temperature falls. Andy calls for a break. They have 15 minutes to get their acts together. 

James can feel the stress radiating through his body. He feels pulled as taut as a guitar string, and if he finds himself wound any tighter, he thinks he could easily snap in half at a moment’s notice.

He knows what he needs to calm himself down. And as he walks down the rickety steps of the portakabin and into the crisp wintery air, he knows he’s seconds away from breathing out the anxiety that races through his veins. His hands smooth over the nylon of his puffy winter jacket, the rustling of the wind drowning out the synthetic sounds. When his fingers clasp around the slightly crushed box of Marlboros in his pocket, he heaves out a sigh of relief. 

Until he opens the cover and finds only the sweet smell of excess tobacco littered at the bottom of the box. He wants to punch something. Perhaps the already dented siding of the portakabin. Perhaps Hammond for being a moron and flubbing up his lines and causing this tension in the first place. 

He’s never been a violent man, never the kind of person to lose his temper, always turning his frustrations into something productive – twitching fingers gliding over the keys of his piano, shaky hands twisting spanners to undo the bolts of his bike, fidgeting over a pot of tea to make a perfect cuppa to calm down. But today, he can’t help but stuff his balled fists into his jacket pockets in order to not do something stupid. 

He swears over the din of the wind whipping through his ears he can hear the sparking of a lighter. He might be slowly going insane. He swears he can hear the crackling of freshly lit tobacco and paper. He is definitely going insane. He swears he can smell fresh cigarette smoke wafting through the breeze. 

When he rounds the corner, he finds Jeremy standing in their usual spot behind the portakabin, cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke surrounding him, reading glasses precariously balancing on the end of his nose, iPhone in hand. 

James sees him as a beacon of hope and almost runs to him.

“Can I steal a fag from you?”

Jeremy looks up from his phone, takes the cigarette out of his mouth with practised motions, and exhales a stream of sweet smelling smoke into the crisp air. 

“Sorry, May, last one.” 

James sees every shade of red flash before his eyes. 

Crimson. Vermillion. Carmine. Scarlet. Cinnabar. 

The fists in his pockets clench so hard he can feel his fingernails leave crescent-shaped divots in the flesh of his palms. 

“We could share this one if you want, I swear I don’t have cooties or anything.”

He doesn’t care if Jeremy has bird flu, or tuberculosis, or bubonic plague, or any of the other diseases Jeremy thinks he’s infected with once a month at this point. All James cares about is taking a drag off of the cigarette which is between Jeremy’s index and middle fingers. 

James moves in closer to Jeremy’s left side. He can hear the wind whipping past the portakabin behind them, but where they stand, they’re protected from the gusts. It has always been their perfect smoking spot. 

Jeremy’s hand outstretches towards James, and their fingers brush slightly as the cigarette is passed between them. 

James presses the cigarette to his lips and inhales greedily and deeply. He holds the smoke in his lungs, opening his mouth, letting fresh air mingle with the smoke before he exhales – ribbons of smoke curling into the frosty air. His left hand slowly unclenches and works its way out of his jacket pocket, fingers barely trembling. Jeremy’s breath condenses in front of them into clouds of mist and James finds himself moving towards the other man unconsciously, the heat of their bodies combining to a comfortable temperature. 

The tension begins to untangle itself around James’s nerves as he takes another drag of the cigarette, inhaling the warm taste of tobacco before blowing out clouds of smoke. Their fingers brush again as Jeremy takes his cigarette back momentarily, and if he notices James shuffling closer to him, he doesn’t say anything. 

For now, silence is enough between them. James has always liked that part of their friendship – he and Jeremy can stand around in companionable silence and not find the need for words. Not find the silence awkward in any way whatsoever. They stand in the cold, huddled together, stress drifting away from them with every second. 

As James takes the cigarette again, flicking the filter with his thumb in a practised motion, excess ash scatters into minute particles in the breeze. He feels Jeremy’s gaze on him. 

“You’ve stopped twitching.”

James looks down at his left hand, finally still against his thigh, before looking up at Jeremy, “I’d never thought you’d noticed that.”

He takes another drag from the cigarette, inhaling sweet smoke and exhaling the residual stress wrapped around his spinal cord. Jeremy shuffles a little closer to him as he holds out his hand to take the cigarette back from him.

“Of course I noticed,” Jeremy explains as he inhales, staring up at the grey clouds, “all you do is fidget when you’re stressed – you can never sit still. You’re worse than Hammond after an espresso.” 

It suddenly hits James how intimate this situation is – how close they stand together, breathing the same air, smoking the same fag, huddled together for warmth.

A thought flashes across James’s mind – what if he were to kiss Jeremy right now? He wonders if Jeremy would push him away. He wonders if Jeremy would taste of the coffee and cigarettes that sustain him throughout these days of filming. He wonders if Jeremy’s cheeks would feel hot under the touch of his cold hands – if those frozen palms could make the taller man bodily shiver. 

His eyes shut as he tries to clear the mental images from his mind, doesn’t want to think about this with the man so close to him. His eyes flutter open when he feels two fingers with the cigarette between them pressed to his lips.

“You’re thinking too loudly again, May.”

He takes a drag from the dwindling fag, Jeremy’s fingers not leaving his lips, although he can take the cigarette for himself. Their fingers brush once again as James takes the cigarette from Jeremy and exhales. 

“And what have I been thinking about so loudly then?” 

“Not entirely sure, but I could almost hear the ticking of your brain over thinking something, doubled with that glazed over look – I knew it had to be interesting. So tell me about it, matey boy.” 

A final drag before James flicks the butt to the ground and grinds down on it with the heel of his shoe. He exhales everything out – smoke, apprehension, tension – and makes his decision. 

He turns towards the taller man, places his cold palms on Jeremy’s warm cheeks and when he presses their lips together, he feels Jeremy shiver underneath the icicles that were once his fingers. 

James expects Jeremy to pull away. He’s still expecting him to pull away and hit him, or push him away, or scream at him, when he feels freezing fingers find their way to the back of his neck. A shiver runs down his spine as Jeremy returns the kiss, not as he expected with brute force or _powerrrr_ , but with the emotion that not many people see from Jeremy. 

When they pull apart, James expects that he better have some sort of explanation, although, if he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t exactly know why he did it. Why he kissed Jeremy bloody Clarkson. He could easily blame it on the stress they’ve all been dealing with the past few weeks – Jeremy would easily buy that excuse.

“Interesting…” Jeremy says, stuffing his hands back into his pockets to find some sort of heat. 

“Eh?” 

“All this time we’ve spent together, and no matter how well I think I know you, you still surprise me, James.” 

“Is that in a good way?”

Jeremy claps his hand on James’s shoulder and steers them away from their smoking spot behind the portakabin, “In the best way. Now let’s go see how much we can anger Hammond before he tattles on us to Andy.”


End file.
